Can Scent Layering Enhance Your Style?
Matching the right fits, colours, and styles of your clothes is an art within itself. To build the perfect outfit for the right occasion, or even just for the right weather, takes skill and practice. So then why are you putting in all that work just to fall flat with fragrance? Your personal fragrance, or scent profile, is something people will notice just as much as they notice your outfit. Perfumes or colognes usually take the spotlight here, but what about your body wash or shampoo? Properly using scent layering can help you, and your style, really stand out.
What Is Scent Layering?
Scent layering, or the art of matching complimentary aromas, is the science behind some of your favourite perfumes and colognes. Usually, this is done by perfumers who have a fine sense of smell and deep understanding of how different scents work together. Every perfume is made up of a variety of scents, arranged in different “fragrance notes”. These notes work together to create an aroma with more depth than just a single smell. The scent of lemon alone smells like a cleaning product, but with ginger and cedar? Those are three major scents from Chanel’s famous Bleu de Chanel.
- Top Notes / Head Notes: the immediate scent you smell, often fading away quickly.
- Middle Notes / Heart Notes: the longest lasting scent you smell.
- Base Notes: the smell that you are most likely to remember after walking away.
Crafting a famous scent profile that will sell millions of bottles of perfume or cologne takes years of practice, though. Fortunately for you, scent layering for yourself just takes a bit of studying. Every product you can buy already has a carefully crafted scent profile or smell already. You just have to find and match the right products.
How Can You Scent Match Products?
Matching the scents of store-bought products, like shampoos and body washes, to your perfume or cologne is simple. In 1992, fragrance expert Michael Edwards created a “fragrance wheel”, which works similar to the colour wheel. Edwards identified the major scent profiles and visualized how they function while scent layering. Ultimately, there are four different families of “notes”: floral, fresh, woody, and ambery.
- Ambery smells are defined as warm, sweet, resinous, and sometimes slightly smokey. Think a vanilla, pine mix - and not just because vanilla is a common ingredient in ambery perfumes!
Within each of these scent families is a variety of different combinations, each a different point on the aromatic spectrum. For instance, a mixture of fresh and floral can give you a citrus profile. If you move closer to floral on the wheel, the profile becomes a soft floral. In contrast, a mixture of woody and ambery can make a mossy wood profile. Just as with the colour wheel, though, opposites tend to clash. Floral does not mix well with woody, and fresh tends to clash with ambery.
Identifying the scent of your current products is key to using scent layering to your benefit. A citrus body wash might be overwhelming with a musky, cinnamon cologne. Pairing the citrus with a cedarwood, patchouli cologne, though, could be the perfect match.
Most brands offer a wide range of scents, covering almost every part of the scent wheel. If they don’t have the right scent, a competitor might.
How Can Scent Layering Help My Style?
While every scent can be enjoyable year-round, changing up your scent can be just as trendy as switching your outfits. Think of it like your shoe choice; Converse are nice in the summer, but might not match a heavy parka. Similarly, matching your scent to the season or occasion can boost your overall style.
When you change from cozy, knit sweaters to light spring jackets, consider switching vanilla perfumes for more floral ones. If you grow a beard out as the summer changes to autumn, look for beard washes with woody scents. Scent layering can add just as much depth to your carefully selected outfit as having the right hairstyle.
Are All Products The Same When Scent Layering?
It is important to understand which products you are using and how long they last. While losing one scent won’t ruin your day, knowing how and when to use a product ensures those scents are there when you want them.
Unfortunately, products like shampoos and body lotions vary depending on the product. Some may have a scent that lasts all day, while others might fade within a few hours. Testing out each product is key to understanding how it holds during warm weather, windy days, or whatever mother nature brings.
For products like perfumes and colognes, though, this can be predicted depending on what type of product you have. While perfume and eau de perfume may sound interchangeable, perfume is actually the strongest product when it comes to fragrances. With a concentration of 20-30% perfume oil, a product advertised as a “perfume” should last over 12 hours. In contrast, an “eau de perfume” is only 10-20% perfume oil, and lasts around 8 hours. Other types are:
- Eau de toilette: 5-15%, lasting 4-7 hours,
- Eau de cologne: 2-4%, lasting 2-3 hours,
- Eau fraiche: 1-3%, lasting around 2 hours.
Keep in mind that eau de perfume is unisex and encompasses products for both men and women. This is important when comparing it to cologne, which will fade much sooner. This means that scent layering properly will require you to reapply cologne multiple times throughout the day.
Can Scent Layering Help My Love Life?
If looks aren’t enough to convince you to start scent layering, consider the benefits scent can have on your love life. Scents can easily trigger memories by sending signals to your hippocampus, the part of your brain that stores memories. While on the way though, these signals pass through the amygdala, the part of your brain that generates emotion.
While there is no such thing as a “love pheromone”, using the right scent profile can evoke positivity and happiness. If you are on a first date, scent layering can give you a signature scent while subconsciously brightening the mood.
So Is Scent Layering Easy?
Using scent layering is easy after considering a few major points;
- Are all of your products in the same corner, or even side, of the scent wheel?
- Does your scent profile go with your outfit, and with the season?
- How long will each of my scents last?
Before you buy your next bottle of shampoo, or a new perfume, go through your current scent selection. Make a list, or draw out the scent wheel and visualize how each of your scents compliment each other. Then, start scent layering and setting up your wardrobe to match.
